A Poem Thread
- Thread starter Angelus
- Start date
Heck, some people seem to choose to be threepid or fourpid, and quite a few even aspire to rocket further up the pid scale.
On the rail tracks
On the day’s last mortuary tear,
a flighty bird upon the wing turned
her eye to me.
On the rail tracks sweet winds pause,
the fountain grass is quickening.
Reeds yielded to her downward beat
swaying to the eddying dives.
She searched tracks in the dying light;
time paused there on the railway
line. Shining like a silver knife which
distantly did slice.
The steely glint was taken up, in her
spectered falcon’s sight. A look, in
which the sunset rides, mandalas made
of light.
To punctuate the poignance thus, the
bird climbed up another notch.
The reeds they sighed and took a breath
as a rumbling engine shook their rest.
In the grind, the roaring gears frame
shadow strobes as boxcars veer.
Like a cinema reel, it played.
A Flashing glimpse through smoke
displayed, a demon dance, a world
remade.
Did the dirty moon just laugh as it swam
beyond this etheric slush? Was my spectral
falcon lost, or remade within the frames
and dust.
In my mind the vision lies, before the thinning
ebb of light. The image flitters, spinning still,
spanning more than sunset’s spill.
In the darkness, a falcon cries, and on the rail
tracks, something dies.
On the day’s last mortuary tear,
a flighty bird upon the wing turned
her eye to me.
On the rail tracks sweet winds pause,
the fountain grass is quickening.
Reeds yielded to her downward beat
swaying to the eddying dives.
She searched tracks in the dying light;
time paused there on the railway
line. Shining like a silver knife which
distantly did slice.
The steely glint was taken up, in her
spectered falcon’s sight. A look, in
which the sunset rides, mandalas made
of light.
To punctuate the poignance thus, the
bird climbed up another notch.
The reeds they sighed and took a breath
as a rumbling engine shook their rest.
In the grind, the roaring gears frame
shadow strobes as boxcars veer.
Like a cinema reel, it played.
A Flashing glimpse through smoke
displayed, a demon dance, a world
remade.
Did the dirty moon just laugh as it swam
beyond this etheric slush? Was my spectral
falcon lost, or remade within the frames
and dust.
In my mind the vision lies, before the thinning
ebb of light. The image flitters, spinning still,
spanning more than sunset’s spill.
In the darkness, a falcon cries, and on the rail
tracks, something dies.
Seamus Heaney, who was often called the greatest Irish poet since Yeats, died on Friday in Dublin. He was 74.
He was a beautiful man, and the world is a sadder place with him gone.
One of his poems, I thought I'd share...
The Grauballe Man
As if he had been poured
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep
the black river of himself.
The grain of his wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel
like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan’s foot
or a wet swamp root.
His hips are the ridge
and purse of a mussel,
his spine an eel arrested
under a glisten of mud.
The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat
that has tanned and toughened.
The cured wound
opens inwards to a dark
elderberry place.
Who will say ‘corpse’
to his vivid cast?
Who will say ‘body’
to his opaque repose?
And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus’s.
I first saw his twisted face
in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a forceps baby,
but now he lies
perfected in my memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,
hung in the scales
with beauty and atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly compassed
on his shield,
with the actual weight
of each hooded victim,
slashed and dumped.
~Seamus Heaney
He was a beautiful man, and the world is a sadder place with him gone.
One of his poems, I thought I'd share...
The Grauballe Man
As if he had been poured
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep
the black river of himself.
The grain of his wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel
like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan’s foot
or a wet swamp root.
His hips are the ridge
and purse of a mussel,
his spine an eel arrested
under a glisten of mud.
The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat
that has tanned and toughened.
The cured wound
opens inwards to a dark
elderberry place.
Who will say ‘corpse’
to his vivid cast?
Who will say ‘body’
to his opaque repose?
And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus’s.
I first saw his twisted face
in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a forceps baby,
but now he lies
perfected in my memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,
hung in the scales
with beauty and atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly compassed
on his shield,
with the actual weight
of each hooded victim,
slashed and dumped.
~Seamus Heaney
Would you help me with the meaning of that poem please?
Can anyone help me with the meaning of that poem please?
A thorough explanation of Heaney's The Grauballe Man poem:
http://fawbie.com/2012/10/14/the-grauballe-man/
http://fawbie.com/2012/10/14/the-grauballe-man/
Error 404 Page not found. So did you Google it?
Found one through Google thanks. Did you understand it yourself without it being explained? I read it a couple of times and it still made no sense to me. It can't be easy.
http://www.linkagenet.com/reviews/heaneypoemcriticism.htm
Even that help did really help. I find that poem like a maze. If you think for a moment you know what it means you get lost in the next bit. You go back to the start and get lost again. Where do you start? What is the line to work from?
Is he describing his feelings upon seeing one of those long dead bog men. Preserved by the peat bogs for thousands of years?
Like this. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ym1Rs23BuOI/UIU-sNAhWrI/AAAAAAAAGx0/bLLy6r0XBes/s400/bog+man.jpg
Like this. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ym1Rs23BuOI/UIU-sNAhWrI/AAAAAAAAGx0/bLLy6r0XBes/s400/bog+man.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grauballe_Man
"The Grauballe Man is a bog body that was uncovered in 1952 from a peat bog near to the village of Grauballe in Jutland, Denmark. The body is that of an adult male dating from the late 3rd century BC, during the early Germanic Iron Age. Based on the evidence of his wounds, he was most likely killed by having his throat slit open."
The Meaning Makers
Living creatures shouting for joy
Holy, holy, holy, a convenient ploy
A euphoric display, a magnetic storm
Spirits leaping, generating form
Peppered empathy, salted autonomy
Morning stars, medieval astronomy
Lack of necessity, mere products of events
Powerful endings, timely repents
Sons of the Most High
All destined to die
Cast crowns before the throne
A life well lived written in stone
Living creatures shouting for joy
Holy, holy, holy, a convenient ploy
A euphoric display, a magnetic storm
Spirits leaping, generating form
Peppered empathy, salted autonomy
Morning stars, medieval astronomy
Lack of necessity, mere products of events
Powerful endings, timely repents
Sons of the Most High
All destined to die
Cast crowns before the throne
A life well lived written in stone
Of the Meaning Makers
The diction of the dictator was
Forged in the Phoenician fire.
Words of the ancestral smith and what they mean to us
Is riddled in what they did conspire.
Dead linguists still speaking
From the cryptographic crypt
Offer us origins of word's first teaching,
Showing us signs in their hands gripped.
Voices of the mountains
And the sweet canopy
Were like lyrical fountains
For man to echo eternally.
Savage tongues turned silver
As we drank from the primordial elixir.
Posted by Dan L. Biggin
From "The Word Of Pen"
http://dbiggin.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/of-meaning-makers.html
Addendum: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...d-discussion&p=3106290&viewfull=1#post3106290
The diction of the dictator was
Forged in the Phoenician fire.
Words of the ancestral smith and what they mean to us
Is riddled in what they did conspire.
Dead linguists still speaking
From the cryptographic crypt
Offer us origins of word's first teaching,
Showing us signs in their hands gripped.
Voices of the mountains
And the sweet canopy
Were like lyrical fountains
For man to echo eternally.
Savage tongues turned silver
As we drank from the primordial elixir.
Posted by Dan L. Biggin
From "The Word Of Pen"
http://dbiggin.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/of-meaning-makers.html
Addendum: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...d-discussion&p=3106290&viewfull=1#post3106290
"Cars"
Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It's the only way to live
In cars
Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days
In cars
Here in my car
Where the image breaks down
Will you visit me please
If I open my door
In cars
Here in my car
I know I've started to think
About leaving tonight
Although nothing seems right
In cars
(Song lyrics/Gary Numan)
Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It's the only way to live
In cars
Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days
In cars
Here in my car
Where the image breaks down
Will you visit me please
If I open my door
In cars
Here in my car
I know I've started to think
About leaving tonight
Although nothing seems right
In cars
(Song lyrics/Gary Numan)
Laughterman
Registered Member
Here is a long poem to make you think.
Google P.E. - basilhughhall - Google Sites
Google P.E. - basilhughhall - Google Sites
A Valentine
For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!- they hold a treasure
Divine- a talisman- an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
The words- the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets- as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-
Still form a synonym for Truth- Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.
Edgar Allan Poe
For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!- they hold a treasure
Divine- a talisman- an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
The words- the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets- as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-
Still form a synonym for Truth- Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.
Edgar Allan Poe
@wegs - What is the meaning of that poem? Why did you choose that one?